


Lionheart

by skyline



Series: Stardust [3]
Category: Big Time Rush
Genre: District Four, Fluff, Hunger Games AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-09
Updated: 2012-06-09
Packaged: 2017-11-07 09:37:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/429545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyline/pseuds/skyline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They clamber out of the waves, on up to the shelter of the dunes. There they lay, panting. Kendall asks, “Kelp, really?” He cannot keep the fondness from his voice. James jokes, “It reminded me of you. Your head is full of the stuff.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lionheart

Kendall dives so deep the pressure makes his skull throb. An eel wends in and out of a coral jungle to his left, where he cut his foot only minutes before. It sniffs at the blood he left, occluding the water like squid ink.  
  
Stupid coral. Something so pretty shouldn’t be so damn sharp.  
  
He clears his nose, his ears, rinsing the fog from his grimy goggles. _There_. Poking out of a mound below a soft bodied jungle of anemones. Kendall digs his fingertips into the dirt, catching the rough, gray shell. This makes exactly twenty oysters; more than enough for a picnic.  
  
His lungs burn for oxygen, the water pressing in around him, weighing heavy on his chest. He pushes up off the soft sand of the shelf, his ascent slow. Diving is always dangerous work, properly equipped or not, and District Four’s only decompression chamber broke down a long time ago. Kendall swims up through halos of yellow light, school of fish fluttering around his calves. He breaks into day, gulping down fresh, cool air.  
  
A dark spot in the distance catches his eye. James slices through the water like a shark.  
  
“Find anything?” Kendall yells.  
  
James holds up a fist full of green, and even from afar Kendall can tell his expression is rueful. He jerks his head, signaling the swim back to shore. It’s a little less than a mile from here, so close to the drop off into open water. They’ve nearly gone too far. If a Peacekeeper patrol ship had found them, they’d be whipped, or worse. Kendall’s stomach rumbles. He thinks, _it would have been worth it_.  
  
They clamber out of the waves, on up to the shelter of the dunes. There they lay, panting. Kendall asks, “Kelp, really?”  
  
He cannot keep the fondness from his voice. James jokes, “It reminded me of you. Your head is full of the stuff.”  
  
Kendall makes a face. “Can we eat already?”  
  
He’s hungry, _so_ hungry. His mom is weathered, rusted through like the hull of her ship, and lately it has been falling on Kendall to forage for food. He doesn’t _mind_. District Four is more bountiful than the pathetic places they see on TV every year, but poaching is beyond illegal. Which Kendall gets, kind of. Overfishing is such a big problem. Just. He never realized how hard his parents worked to keep him fed until his dad disappeared into the sea.  
  
They are fortunate now that most of the Peacekeepers are deployed past the continental shelf, watching, always watching, to see if anyone will try to make a break for it. They catch a small boat, occasionally. The large trawlers and the research vessels and the people who operate them have clearance to sail on out towards the horizon. Clearance and GPS trackers. Kendall always stares at the nub of his mother’s, protruding from her blue veins, and wonders why she doesn’t try to cut it out.  
  
“Let’s,” James decides, rubbing his hand over his stomach. His ribs are no longer visible, hidden beneath a healthy layer of muscle. His family eats often these days. Poaching may be illegal, but it also easy. And James is lethal in the water.  
  
Well. Usually. Tomorrow’s a Reaping Day. James is allowed to be a little off.  
  
They crack the oysters and eat them raw, sliding slippery down their throats. The kelp they leave to dry, letting it crack with sea salt before shoving it in their mouths. As sunset overtakes the sky, Kendall raps shells against each other, the pearlescent red, blue, and indigo insides flashing as he makes up a melody.  
  
“You’re good at that,” James says, humming along.  
  
“I’m good at everything,” Kendall snarks back. It’s not strictly true, but James doesn’t argue.  
  
They’ve been best friends since they were six years old, since that very first swimming lesson with Camille. Sure, they hit some rough patches in between; James went to class the next day and took to boating like he was born to do it. Kendall’s dad wouldn’t shut about him, which inspired more than a little jealousy on Kendall’s part. But he’s long since gotten over that. He’s watched James grow from a scrawny shipyard rat into a strong, broad shouldered man-boy, into this shining young god who makes all the girls swoon.  
  
Kendall’s pretty enamored himself. He has no idea how it happened. Somewhere between running down the beach, blowing on conch shells, bickering, and more midnight swims that Kendall can count, James crept up on him. Like a wave.  
  
Like a storm.  
  
Like love.  
  
Kendall doesn’t know if that’s what this is. Just the idea of it makes him feel small and unprepared and like he’s falling from somewhere high up, their first kiss all over again. Every time he thinks about the L-word too seriously, James chases away the lines on his face with the bow of his lips. He always sends Kendall’s head spinning.  
  
He does it now, pushing his mouth insistent against Kendall’s over their tiny camp fire, soft. “Worried about tomorrow?”  
  
“No.” Kendall says, and he isn’t. His name’s been in the lottery all of three times, and his baby sister, Katie, is only eight. She’s not eligible for anything yet. “M’happy.”  
  
He moves his lips against James’s, salty and familiar. James deepens the lazy kiss, rolling on top of him, hitching their hips together. He sends frantic electricity spiraling out through Kendall’s limbs. “Me too.”  
  
It’s too easy for things to get out of control, for James’s fingers to play against the waistline of Kendall’s trunks, pressing hard into Kendall’s thigh. Passion comes so easy to James, who thinks with his heart and his dick instead of his head.  
  
Kendall feels it too, can’t think of anything he’d like more than to see James naked and desperate and panting only for him. But. They're both barely teenagers. He’s not ready yet. Kendall exhales, shaky. “Slow down.”  
  
James whines, trying to get more friction between them, arching into Kendall in this sinful sweet way. “Don’t wanna. Want you.”  
  
Kendall almost caves. Almost, but not quite. “Not yet. Not today. We’ve got all the time in the world.”  
  
James groans into the skin of Kendall’s throat, squirms in a way that means he’s still hot beneath his skin. He says, “Promise?”  
  
“Promise,” Kendall says, pulling James close to his chest. They lay there for a long time, turned on but not doing anything else about it, listening to the thunder of the waves and their own heartbeats. Night brings whale song lullabies, haunting in their beauty. James hums along, his voice reverberating through Kendall’s ribcage. Without meaning to, he falls asleep, curled into James’s warmth.  
  
Kendall wakes up the next morning alone. He expects to see James at the Reaping, but on the way there, he bumps into James’s parents, standing at the back of the crowd. “Uh, hi, Mrs. Diamond. Where’s James?”  
  
“Deathly ill,” she explains. “Something about a bad oyster?”  
  
Kendall blanches. Shit. “Is he okay?”  
  
“He’ll be fine, but he couldn’t make it today. The Peacekeepers tried to give us a hard time about it until he puked in one of their faces.” Kendall huffs a laugh without meaning to. She allows a smile. “It was rather spectacular.”  
  
Kendall bids her goodbye, unhurried, not worried. He waves to Camille across the square, and then another friend from school. He thinks that he owes James an apology for the oysters, but mostly he envies that he gets to stay home. That’s rarely allowed. Kendall wishes he’d seen that poor Peacekeeper’s expression.  
  
The day smells of low tide, dead fish and decay. The first Tribute culled is a girl Kendall vaguely recognizes from school – he still does not pay much attention there- named Kat. She stalks up on stage brave, self-assured. She is already a winner. Or maybe not. Because the second name that rings out over the loudspeakers is one that Kendall did not expect to hear.  
  
 _His_.  
  
Kendall thinks about whale song.  
  
Kendall thinks about waiting.  
  
Kendall thinks about James.  
  
After he steps up on stage, their District chaperone asks for volunteers. He is met with silence, and Kendall is not surprised. Kat is the most courageous of her friends, and the only person who would take Kendall’s place is tucked safe in bed, fever hot and doubled over in pain. He sends his thanks to the sea for that, grateful for bad oysters and dried kelp.  
  
The one thing he regrets is that he will not get to say goodbye.  
  
Which is why Kendall decides, then and there, that he will win. He may not be one of those kids whose parents have trained him for this for his entire life, but he also will not go meekly to his death. He is bigger, stronger, and better fed than most Tributes. He’s been spear fishing in the rivers that feed into the ocean for almost as long as he’s been swimming. And if there’s water, he knows how to stay fed. Deep sea trawling is the most dangerous job in all of Panem, which makes Kendall the most dangerous boy in the Games.  
  
He’s still petrified. Kendall does not know how to kill.  
  
He supposes he will learn.  
  
Just like he promised, he and James will have all the time in the world.


End file.
